Our Children Are Worried!

It is a fact.
Our kids are worried.

There has been a large increase in mental health problems in children relating to anxiety in recent years.

We need to start teaching our kids from an early age how to cope with their worries and give them these skills for life.
How can we do this? This is not a one week program, rather an action plan to walk your child through stressful situations when they face them.

Remember a stressful situation to a child might not even rate on your scale.
Eventually they will learn to do this on their own.
Before You Start: 1. Teach your child that it is normal and healthy to worry.

Everyone has worries about different things! Without loading your "adult" worries onto them, explain some things that worry you Eg.

Riding a bike, reverse parking, talking in front of a lot of people, cooking cakes, typing on the computer. It is normal to worry but we must learn to face them and not let them stop us from having fun. 2.

Build a vocabulary of emotions.

Read stories and talk about how the characters are feeling.
What do their bodies look like when they are feeling that way? Practice acting out these feelings.

Most children know about happy and sad.

We need to extend this further. Try the Mr Men series as a conversation starter.

The Plan: 1.

How do I know if I'm worried? Teach your child to understand their body.
Their body gives the first signals that they are worried.
Do you have a funny tummy? Are your palms sweaty? Is it hard to talk? Do you have a sore head? Are your muscles tight? Is your heart beating fast? Are your knees shaky? If the answer is yes, then there's a good chance you're worried.
2.
Next teach your child to relax.
This in itself is a lifetime skill. If they can not relax, they won't be able to think this through. You've all heard the saying "take a few deep breaths", well now teach it to your children. Ten deep breaths actually slows your heart rate down. Make up some funny stories that encourage your children to tighten then relax their muscles to help relieve the toxins that are building up.

Teach them how to distract themselves: read a book, colour in, draw a picture, sing a song, remember a happy story or something they are looking forward to doing.

For chronic worriers you could make a worry box to place their worries or a doll to tell all their worries to.
3.

What are you worried about? You'd be surprised how many children don't know.
Spend some time to help them work it out.

Depending on their age it can help to ask them to give it a rating.
This can be done with their hands indicating small or large or with a number (1 being not very worried and 10 being very worried). 4.
Teach your child about self talk.

Self talk is the conversation we have in our heads all day.

When we are faced with a problem there are two different types of thoughts that come into our heads: helpful (positive) and unhelpful (negative) thoughts. Why is this important? Because our thoughts are linked to our emotions.

A negative thought creates a negative emotion. Eg.

 "I never get this right" creates the feelings of anger and frustration.
"I'll get it right next time" creates a feeling of hope.
5.

Learn to challenge your negative thoughts.
Challenge your thinking by saying: STOP! Then asking yourself: Is that really true? or Is that right? or What else could it be? Or Is it really that bad? 6.
Replace that unhelpful thought with a helpful one.
Eg. I can fix this; I'll get some help and it will be OK; I can try harder next time; If I practice I'll get better; Mum always comes back to get me; It won't be long; I might get to do it next time. The best way to teach this is to regularly model your own thinking when you come across a situation. Model the language and the thought process- "Oh no I've just burnt the dinner.

My tummy feels funny and my muscles are all tight.

I'll take 10 deep breaths to help myself relax.
What will I do now? We won't have anything to eat and Daddy will be home soon? Oh dear that's an unhelpful thought.

That makes me feel angry and sad.

I'll challenge that thought - Hang on, do we really have something we can eat? Let's look in the cupboard and see what else I can get ready quickly.
Yes, that's a helpful thought.

Now I feel more hopeful and happy and we'll be able to have a nice dinner.

" 7.
Walk your child through their own worrying experience. It is important to reward the effort (even small steps) and not the end result! Dealing with worries when they occur is an essential skill which some children learn without any help and other children need to be explicitly taught.

I cannot emphasise the importance of teaching your children how their inner thinking effects their emotions and how they can turn this around to be more positive. Happy thoughts = happy kids! Good luck!